This invention relates to a conveyor belt which is fabricated by carbon or ceramic fibers and more particularly it relates to an endless conveyor belt which is circulated through a high-temperature heat treatment furnace and made of heat-resistant carbon or ceramic fibers.
As the above-mentioned kind of endless conveyor belt which acts as conveyor means for carrying articles to be treated through a furnace, metallic mesh belts are most commonly employed. These heat-resistant mesh belts are fabricated by a combination of coiled wires and linear wires which are both made of heat-resistant steel wires. While heat-resistability of such belts are expressed by their tensile strength under a high temperature, convensional heat-resistant steel meshes can endure only up to 1,200.degree. C.
In other words, although strength afforded to those heat-resistant steel mesh belts depends on a kind of steel materials composing the belts, it is a matter of course that mesh belts having a strength more than a maximum tensile strength of steel materials under a high temperature can never be obtained so long as they are made of steel materials.
It shall be noted also that so that heat-resistant mesh belts can attain strength close to a maximum tensile strength of steel materials composing the belts, wires made from said steel materials and composing said mesh belts have to be afforded with large diameters. This results in making mesh belts very heavy. When a dead load of such mesh belts is compared with weights of articles carried on the mesh belts, the belts are often driven not for carrying the articles but only for circulating themselves. This results consequently in providing disadvantageous conveyor means.